


The Inside

by plumedy



Category: Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-15
Updated: 2013-06-15
Packaged: 2017-12-15 01:05:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 883
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/843520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plumedy/pseuds/plumedy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oh, well, what the hell, decided McWatt and came down instead of flying into a mountain. Not that it was the best decision in his life.</p><p>And this story has no moral whatsoever.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Inside

McWatt came down and everyone was perfectly all right, including the two of his crew and Doc Daneeka and the plane. And McWatt himself was very much all right. When met with sympathetic stares and questions, he smiled at them and told them that nothing had truly happened.

There seemed to be an air of victorious invulnerability about him. The instance Yossarian saw his smile, he understood with horror and revulsion that McWatt was the first man in the squadron to defeat Catch-22. It was no longer applicable; for somehow it was perfectly clear that, although McWatt would never ask for being grounded, he would also never fly a single mission, never, no matter how big Colonel Cathcart would make the number: seventy, eighty, a hundred - it was all the same now.

Everyone felt it. The sensation was as distinct, as, Yossarian imagined, it must've been for the disciples who saw Jesus walking on water.

But, unfortunately, there was no water for McWatt to walk on, and he walked through the sand, cheapening the effect, and sat down onto the ground.

They stood, staring at him in awe.

"Why, he saved your life, Doc," remarked Sergeant Knight. "It would've been a bloody shame if you died. Thank him before he is court-martialed."

But Daneeka hushed him, his frail forehead wrinkled in an apparent effort to find a solution to some puzzling dilemma. Then he grabbed Yossarian by the sleeve, and, caring nothing for his violent protests, walked forward. His expression suggested  that he, too, caught the biblical allusion and was now very much intimidated by the prospect of sinking through the ground – McWatt would hardly be able to help, what with his sick holy bliss that just fell short of giving him a halo.

Yossarian wished there were blood on McWatt for Daneeka to wash it off with cold balls of absorbent cotton, or at least for Daneeka to have a blanket to drape it tenderly around McWatt's shoulders. As it is, there was nothing to do, and it was pretty awkward.

"Doc," said Yossarian, staring at McWatt with apologetic anguish, "can you treat the awkward?"

"Shut up," said Daneeka. "I'm trying to."

What he was actually doing was washing Kid Sampson off the propeller of McWatt's plane. Even standing on a ladder, he could barely reach it, and so he was virtually throwing the cottonballs at the dirty vanes. They sparkled iridescently, fluffy and snow-like.

Yossarian sighed.

"This is not going to work, Doc. Let me-"

"Shut up. And drape something around his shoulders. Take a coat from Knight. Or something."

Apparently, in his distress Daneeka forgot that it was 86.5 above zero, and there were just about no coats around. Yossarian could take Sergeant Knight's uniform instead, of course - and he would have done so, but he sincerely doubted that this was going to be of any help.

"He doesn't need anything," Yossarian said upon some reflection. "He isn't naked."

Daneeka looked insulted.

"You could undress him!"

For some reason Yossarian was sure this was not a good idea either. He walked up to the surgeon and his ladder, took Daneeka by the waist and put him on the ground.

"Just take him to Gus and Wes, would you," said he in exasperation. "Oh, and give me the cotton."

 

During the rest of the day many people, among whom were Piltchard, Wren, Sergeant Towser and Sergeant Knight, came to the medical tent to try and arrest McWatt, and Colonel Korn even wanted to do it repeatedly.

"He can arrest himself," said Yossarian upon hearing this. "Repeatedly. In the head."

Doc Daneeka was wonderfully stoic, enduring all the attacks with mournful but uncompromising dignity. Cathcart, evidently being in the same state, raised the number of missions to eighty, then signed an order awarding McWatt with a medal for saving the plane and Doc Daneeka, then thought better of it and signed an order to court-martial McWatt as soon as he was released from medical care.

 

But McWatt wasn't about to be released. As night approached, he got very, very unwell and was scaring the squadron with screams so bloodhurdling that Hungry Joe himself would've been proud (had he not been busy washing mud and bits of Kid Sampson off his camera). He was tossing in his sleep, his cheeks hollow and covered with pearls of pure, odorless sweat, and the bags under his eyes kept getting darker and deeper until they finally looked like ominous thunderclouds hovering over his freckled face.

"I thought I knew why he wouldn't jump," said Yossarian.

"I'll give him a pill," said Doc Daneeka. "Maybe he'll feel better if he sleeps for a while."

"That's what you thought about me, too."

"Well, you aren’t naked anymore."

"I'm always naked," Yossarian replied very grimly. "On the inside."

This drew such a deep, drawling "ooh" from Daneeka that one might've well thought being naked was a burdensome birthright.

"Wouldn't he be better off if he didn't come down at all?"

Yossarian looked at McWatt's anguine, restless body; at the white foam of sweat, tears and dust that gathered in the corners of his eyes and was sliding down his temples, making him look like a myrrhing icon. McWatt reeked of sadness.

"I have," said Yossarian, "absolutely no idea."


End file.
